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TAMPA, Fla. – A 16-year-old who’s accused of killing another teen had a pre-trial detention hearing in Tampa <\/a>on Thursday.<\/p>\n James Middlebrooks, 16, is accused of shooting Jonathan Blue, 19, during an alleged drug deal.<\/p>\n The backstory:<\/p>\n The Hillsborough County<\/a> Sheriff’s Office says it got a 911 call around 1:20 a.m. on March 15 about a shooting on White Chicory Drive in Apollo Beach<\/a>.<\/p>\n Courtesy: Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office <\/p>\n Deputies say they found a car crashed in a ditch nearby in Ruskin. Blue was found shot in the chest in the car, and a 20-year-old woman was found in the car with injuries from the crash.<\/p>\n According to detectives, security camera footage from a neighbor captured Blue’s car outside a home on White Chicory Drive. Two people were reportedly seen outside the car, then a woman was heard screaming.<\/p>\n Victim Jonathan Blue Courtesy: Trinity Hammond <\/p>\n Detectives say the shooting happened during a planned drug deal.<\/p>\n HCSO identified Middlebrooks as the suspected shooter.<\/p>\n What they’re saying:<\/p>\n “This is a case where we have one person dead and another seriously injured over marijuana,” the prosecutor said.<\/p>\n Middlebrooks’ public defender asked the judge to give him bond, saying that his family feared for his safety because of this case, so they moved to a different part of the state.<\/p>\n “There’s no indication that Mr. Middlebrooks is any type of flight risk, since his family lives in Florida,” Middlebrooks’ public defender said. “He is 16 years old. He doesn’t have a prior criminal history.”<\/p>\n Dig deeper:<\/p>\n While this hearing was going on, a witness in this case was at the center of a chaotic scene in a different courtroom.<\/p>\n Freddrick Cook was held in contempt, after a judge says he refused to talk with prosecutors about this case.<\/p>\n The judge says Cook received a subpoena and was given immunity, so he’s required to answer the state’s questions, although he continuously said in the courtroom that he wasn’t going to tell prosecutors anything.<\/p>\n After an outburst in court, Cook was given more time behind bars.<\/p>\n What’s next:<\/p>\n The judge ordered Middlebrooks to be held behind bars without bond on the murder charge.<\/p>\n The Source: Information for this story came from a pre-trial detention hearing and contempt hearing in Hillsborough County court.<\/p>\n Tampa<\/a>Crime and Public Safety<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. – A 16-year-old who’s accused of killing another teen had a pre-trial detention hearing in Tampa…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[630,47,629,115,135,137,136,628],"class_list":["post-226376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-crime-publicsafety","tag-fl","tag-hillsborough","tag-news","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/vlcsnap-2026-04-09-18h44m48s642.png\")
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